Pump Audio has sent out the notice posted below to all of their contributors.
It basically says that from now on their split will be 35% to the artists and 65% to Getty Images.

It would be surprising if this was a Pump Audio decision but it is definitely not surprising that this is a Getty Images decision. Getty Images along with Jupiter Images are pretty ruthless in how they treat their composers. And their composers are the ones who make their business models profitable.

Dear Pump Audio Artist,

We would like to thank you for your music and congratulate you on being part of one of the fastest growing music licensing companies in the world. Since the acquisition of Pump Audio by Getty Images, we continue to hear praises from a wide expansion of our clients on the depth and quality of our catalog and that is a testament to you.

As we plan for the future growth of our offering to the global music licensing client base, we have determined that to fully support the 400+ person Getty Images sales staff and invest in marketing and technology needs that we must make adjustments to the current revenue split system. By making these changes, we intend to accelerate the pace of our growth and achieve our goal of becoming the largest music licensor in the world.

The new model will be as following:

1) Licensing fees will now be 35% to the artist, 65% to Pump Audio/Getty Images

2) This change will take place as of July 1, 2009. Any royalties payable through June 30, 2009 will not be affected by this change

3) Performance royalty splits will remain at 50% of the publisherâ€™s share

4) Those that donâ€™t accept the new split will have their music removed from the system no later than December 31, 2009.

5) The rights you granted to us in the original contract do not change

There are lots of comments regarding this move by Getty and Pump Audio, most of them bad, things like;

“Thatâ€™s defaulting on the contract. If they have a signed agreement with me that states 50/50 and they decide to make changes to the split, they need to have a new contract signed with that agreement, which I will not do, and if they default on my contract and change the terms without my written consent, I will sue them.”

and;

“You have to really stay on top of things with Pump/Getty and I will definitely be looking for alternatives. Just when I was thinking they were cool it turns out to be another artist-leaching corporation”

Scott has contacted his rep at Pump Audio with some direct questions and received these as replies

1. Nacia at Pump couldn’t promise me the problems they’ve been having reconciling all of their databases (including, among other things: incorrect contact, PRO, and direct deposit info) are going to be fixed anytime soon. Even with all the new bodies, notice none are dedicated to admin…

2. She also informed me that Pump would now be giving their ‘clients’ UP TO A YEAR to report usage. Not pay, just report! So an artist could conceivably be waiting for 2+ years for payment if the bi-annual reporting didn’t fall in one’s favor.

3. I’ve also learned from another source that Pump are 15 months behind in registering their PRO info.

Scott goes on to say:

I have music in the PumpBox and have gotten a placement, but after this and the forced addition of our content to iStockPhoto.com (without receiving the benefits that people who joined iStock of their own volition, natch), I’m beginning to wonder if I need to ‘beat feet’ and let my participation die a natural death…

I think one of the reasons behind the success of Partners In Rhyme and www.musicloops.com and www.sound-effect.com is that we are a company run by musicians, first and foremost we think of our musicians above all else because we know first-hand what it is like to try to make a living at composing music.

It is difficult in that musicians are just that, musicians, they do not have MBAs or degrees in marketing and promotion and they are often times completely socially inept. To expect a musician to spend his/her days producing creative work and then ask them to also handle all the business dealings plus the marketing, self promotion, accounting, etc, etc. is a really big ask.

At Partners In Rhyme we are trying to make a place where musicians just have to create, we take of the rest and send them a nice paycheck every month. I can promise you we will never turn “corporate” (even though we are incorporated) and we will always be on the side of the little guy.

50/50 Forever!

So how do you feel about this new development at Pump Audio?

Do you have music in their library and are you going to keep it there?

Are you also looking for alternatives like these other Pump Audio composers?

Tell us your feelings and what your plans are. It might help other composers figure out their own way forward.

GUNS! is a collection of 24 different gun sounds including shotguns, machine guns, pistols and rifles from Partners In Rhyme and Lynne Publishing.

The sounds are available via buttons on four separate panels and includes loading and racking weapon sounds giving you the ability to play a variety of sounds at the same time without having to scroll through a long list just to change sounds.
Info about each gun is available by pressing on the name of the gun in the button.

These sounds were professionally recorded and are being made available from the Partners In Rhyme sound effects catalog (http://www.sound-effect.com/).

The New PIR Preview PlayerLast month we announced our new preview player for the musicloops.com site and this month we have a new preview player for the Partners In Rhyme royalty free music collections site. This new preview player was also created to address customer requests and complaints from the previous player.

The new features include:
1. The new player looks really cool and is much easier to use.
2. There is now a volume control
3. You can turn looping on and off next to the volume control
4. The length of the file playing is now shown in the upper panel
5. Total amount of files, full length tracks, edits and loops are listed.
6. Play, stop, pause and scrub controls have been added.

Check it out. I’ve been passing this guitar in the window of Guitarland, the guitar shop just down the street from where I live, for about a month now.
I finally justified buying it and MonaoLia says if I get it I have to create a new collection of guitar music to put out on Partners In Rhyme in the next 20 months.
Sounds like a fun challenge.

Besides our collection of free royalty free music available for commercial use here:Free Royalty Free Music, here is a collection of “Copyright Free” music clips from Josh Levine available free for any type of use as long as you credit. I doubt they are actually “copyright free” as that would mean that Josh no longer owns them and he would not be able to request a credit for them. I’m pretty sure he means “royalty free”.
There are 19 tracks in this collection of varying quality. With titles like “One Hour Garageband Tune #1″ you might get an idea of how they were recorded.
Worth checking out though:http://www.century22.org/mp3/